In 1808, Mathias Stinnes founded a company for shipping and coal trading, the activities focused on the rivers Rhine and Ruhr.

After a failed attempt to gain influence in the established shipping companies by the acquisition of shares, Hugo Stinnes entered in 1920 into direct competition with the three main shipping companies HAPAG, Norddeutscher Lloyd and Hamburg Sued.

In 1992, KG Monsun (a fully owned subsidiary of Hugo Stinnes, branch office Hamburg) and 'Deutsche Seereederei Rostock GmbH' founded the shipping company “DSR Stinnes West Indies Services GmbH”, domiciled in Hamburg.

Deutsche Seereederei acquired the remaining shares from the Stinnes family in 2002 and moved the company’s headquarters from Hamburg to Rostock.

Besides operating a full container service from and to South Africa, the Rostock domiciled “Hugo Stinnes Schiffahrt GmbH” is a specialist for the ocean transport of breakbulk-, heavy load- and project cargo between Northern Europe, the Caribbean and Mexico, thus continuing the tradition of Ozean-Linie from 1921.